Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) defeated Rajasthan Royals (RR) by one run in the 53rd match of the Indian Premier League 2025 (IPL 2025) at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on May 4.
Chasing 207 runs, RR lost two early wickets. Vaibhav Suryavanshi (4 runs off 2 balls) was the first one to go. He perished in the opening over of the innings bowled by Vaibhav Arora.Â
Kunal Singh Rathore (0 runs off 5 balls), on his IPL debut, failed to trouble the scorers as Moeen Ali was the one behind his undoing.
A 58-run partnership between Yashasvi Jaiswal (34 runs off 21 balls) and Riyan Parag (95 runs off 45 balls) brought the Royals back in the contest. The duo did not back down from the challenge. They were up to the task, staying positive in their intent, scoring boundaries at the rate of knots.
In the powerplay, RR smashed 59 runs for the loss of two wickets.
While it seemed as if Jaiswal and Parag would continue their onslaught, looking at the way they were batting, KKR’s spinners did not let that happen.Â
Moeen, who had already sent Kunal packing, bagged his second wicket of the match, dismissing Jaiswal in the seventh over.
Varun Chakaravarthy, in the eighth over, outclassed both Dhruv Jurel (0 run off 1 ball) and Wanindu Hasaranga (0 run off 2 balls), rattling the stumps on both the occasions. This reduced RR to 71/5 and the game seemed done and dusted.
However, RR’s captain Parag had other plans in his mind. In a completely rare scenario, he tonked five sixes off Moeen in the 13th over, showing that the match was far from over.Â
This brutal display of ball-striking extended to the next over as Parag did not even spare Chakaravarthy, smashing another six. This meant that Parag hit six sixes on six consecutive deliveries, which was a first in the IPL.
Shimron Hetmyer (29 runs off 23 balls) supported Parag well. He hammered a maximum off Sunil Narine in the 15th over. However, the West Indian departed back to the dressing room in the 16th over as Harshit Rana brought an end to the 92-run partnership for the sixth wicket.
Narine bowled a tight 17th over, giving away just five runs. The match hung in balance as RR needed 38 runs off 18 deliveries with four wickets remaining.
Despite bowling a no-ball in the 18th over, Harshit did not buckle under pressure and took a match-winning wicket of Parag, who holed out at long-on, five runs short of a well-deserved century.
RR required 33 runs off 12 balls. Jofra Archer (12 runs off 8 balls) struck a boundary in the 19th over off Andre Russell but that was just about it. The over yielded 11 runs, bringing the equation down 22 off six.
After giving a double and a single on the first two balls, Vaibhav got hit for a six and a four by Shubham Dubey (25* runs off 14 balls), reducing the deficit to nine off two. Dubey hammered another six straight down the ground as RR required three runs to win off the final ball of the match.
Vaibhav bowled it right on the blockhole. Shubham thumped the ball and set for a two. Archer, who was running at the non-striker's end, ended up getting run-out as KKR won the match by one run in a stunning fashion.
With this victory, KKR moved to sixth position on the IPL 2025 points table, while RR, who are already eliminated, remained at the eighth place.
To know more about today's IPL 2025 match between KKR and RR:
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